burn baby burn
by violent darlings
Summary: Sand Saref and the Spirit have some unfinished business. Post-movieverse, high T.


My inability to focus on a particular fandom and instead dabble in as many as possible is something of a curse. On another note, was anyone else a little disappointed in the lack of Sand/Spirit sexy time and gratuitous angst in the film?

**Disclaimer:** No, unfortunately not.

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><p><em><strong>burn baby burn<strong>_

she doesn't leave Central City right away, because you and her have enough unfinished business that you can almost feel the weight of it, stretching across the space between the two of you to yank you ceaselessly back together. the cleanup from your final showdown with the Octopus takes weeks and you manage to escape Ellen's tender (haha) mercies and Dolan's hard eyes under the pretence of needing to sleep. (oh, you do, so very much.)

but she is waiting.

dark eyed, arms crossed, standing with one hip jutted to the side and staring down at your beloved city like it is a small, dirty thing on her shoe. only one of the many differences between you and Sand, she loathes Central City with every inch of her, and sometimes you think (the Octopus's experiments regardless) that is the only thing tethering you to life. _Spirit_, she says without turning. _as punctual as ever, I see. I've been waiting._

_how did you find me?_ you manage, and she half-turns, her lovely face in profile, a grim smile on her lips.

_when you know the right people..._ she drawls, trailing off with an expressive wave of those familiar hands. your eyes slide down her, all curves and silky skin and right to that perfect -

_see anything you like?_ she asks, amused, and you flush and turn away. against your will you remember the sight of her naked, bare and oh so amused, and you want it again like a hole in the head.

_oh, for God's sake_, you rasp, and stride over to pull her into your arms.

she doesn't act surprised and she lets you hold her as long as you want, until your heart slows, until you don't feel like your chest is about to explode outwards into tiny pieces that will then knit themselves back together like a net of torn skin and broken heart. and the novelty of just standing, of just being held, is like a punch and a burn and a bruise all in one, a throb-sting-ache of pain that needles its way inside of you. you can't help but feel torn, that you are simultaneously entwined in the living arms of Sand and the sinuous embrace of Lorelai. and Ellen, how can you even think of Ellen at a time like this, as lovely and untouchable as a Vermeer pressed behind glass and protected. protect. you must protect Ellen, from your lifestyle and your madness and your hopelessly wandering eye. there is no greater danger to Ellen than yourself and she does not belong in this room, not here. she does not compare, she is nothing to the wild Dali that is Sand or the Van Gogh glory that trails in Lorelai's wake. thinking in art metaphors; could you be more pretentious? yes, and no, and oh, of course, yes.

and never loving Ellen enough because she wasn't Sand and isn't Sand, can never be seen, will never grip your hand and scream her joy up into the night-smog air. there's just something about a childhood sweetheart, a blistering-nostalgia tug to the heartstrings that is impossible to resist and feels both like growing up and coming home. and you are sorry, truly. for all Ellen's beauty, she could never be Sand. Sand transcends beauty, she is the femme fatale of her withered and battered heart, and however Ellen tries to crawl under your skin she has not yet managed to supersede that ancient hold Sand anchors you with.

she's irrationally beautiful, a product of kind genetics but also potions and creams and treatments to keep her exquisite, pressed in time like a rare and delicate flower in the pages of a book, a gold watch stopped halfway round. you can't imagine her a housewife, faint lines appearing from laughter and tears, a child clinging to her skirts and another in the cradle. and you, coming home from work with your cap in your hand and the sight of them enough to set you blazing.

you kiss her.

kiss her like the only oxygen in the world comes from her lips, kiss her like she is salvation and madness and heaven all in one. she kisses you back but it's not really you she's kissing, no, or maybe it's just that you wish she was kissing someone else. you don't know anymore.

what you do know is that it is exquisite, deliriously wonderful to be seduced for once instead of being the seducer. she strips you down like you're a machine she's taking apart piece by piece and you can't help wonder how many men, how many times for Sand to be so good at pulling men apart. how many marriages and how many lovers and the fury grips you by the throat and shakes you heartily because you had her first. she was yours first. your hands wind themselves into fists at her waist, backing her towards the mattress and tugging at her skirt, clumsy with frustration and fear. she's afraid, and that feels like it might kill you, but then again she's not afraid, not with that tiny smirk and her flashing eyes and the dichotomy of her makes you want to scream and cheer and dance. you can't help but laugh.

_Spirit,_ she says alarmed, and it's not your name it's your name it's not. she won't call you Denny because you won't take off your mask to make love to her, the leather brushing against her skin as you lower yourself down her body, the taste of her enough to send you spinning. you can't take it off. it's the mystery they fall in love with, the hero, the sharp sarcastic spirit of the darkness, who will take them in the dark and deny them in the day. you could never deny Sand though, not with her legs thrown over your shoulder and your lips on her, so close, as though you could shake your surroundings like a kaleidoscope and she would become your whole world. you tear off the last of your clothes and slide into her.

and oh, you're going to hell for everything you've done when you're finally allowed to die, and embossed too deep in your memory is Sand's smile and Lorelai's wink and you can't help but wonder when you're going to wake up from this awful, deliriously joyous dream. but you have this, you are allowed to have this, her here and now and alive, blissfully real and alive, underneath you with her everything eyes gazing up at you like you've finally done something right.

the arch of her spine, your hands deep in her glorious hair - sensation and sound, image and imagination, these are the things that will stay with you on the dark nights when your city's song is not enough to keep you warm. through bullets and knives and burns, the memory of Sand Saref is enough to hold you to the living.

you can't work out whether you want to hate her for that.

_Spirit_, she says - screams, and something in you gives up the ghost. she strokes your face with her trembling fingers, coming down from that high, bathed in the darkness, and nothing you will ever be able to claim. nothing that you deserve to claim.

_I'm not a cop -_ but oh, don't you wish you were.


End file.
